The Golden Compass
First of a three part fantasy/sci-fi series. Some people hate it because of it's anti God message but it's a great read. I found it hard to put down. There's even a Snopes article about the film adaptation.

With no money to build thousands of Apple II machines, Wozniak and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs both approached Commodore with the Apple II. “Chuck Peddle from Commodore came to the garage and he was one of about three people we showed the Apple II prototype ever,” Wozniak said.

PS. almost forgot, Alan Whelan of Trocaire emailed to ask me to mention their ethical Global Gift campaign to help, “poor families around the world this Christmas.” While we’re on the topic of Christmas charity, by supporting Bothar you can help send cows to needy families. A bizarre item on the radio a few days ago involved a reporter accusing Bothar of keeping poor people poor. He reasoned that Bothar need poor people to operate. Weird stuff.

Don’t be so smug about Commodore passing up the Apple II. The PET and TRS-80 both outsold the Apple II for many years, and Commodore blew Apple out of the water until Jack Tramiel was forced out in 1984. As Woz related the story — Jobs was not offering Commodore JUST the Apple II. He wanted Commodore to hire them both to run the computer division. Imagine that.